One Day
by Jedi Kay-Kenobi
Summary: The first born of the Skywalker twins has finally met and now knows his real father. Now it is the second born's turn. (An addition to Know You Better)


**Hi! I decided to do an Anakin and Leia fanfiction that ties in with the Luke and Anakin one I did. I'm thinking of doing two more of these types of fic and already have ideas... just depends if I ultimately decide to do it. Well for those of you who enjoyed my previous fic on Anakin and the first born of the Skywalker twins, I hope that you also enjoy this one on him and the second. :)**

**One Day.**

* * *

She found herself restless and unable to sleep this night.

Every time she closed her eyes images of one particular thing, one thing that she did not expect to find her thoughts dwelling on at this time plagued her.

Her mother.

The mother that she only treasured a tiny memory of.

A beautiful and kind but sad woman.

She had now lay beside her sleeping husband in the darkness of their bedroom for hours, unable to capture a wink of sleep.

She blinked her eyes slow and tightly, scrunching her hands into fists and rubbing at the irritated and dry orbs of vision before throwing the thin blue covers off of her and swinging her legs out to the side with a long, annoyed sigh.

Tip-toeing quietly to the door, she removed her nightgown from its hook and dressed herself in it, shivering as the soft silk caressed the skin of her arms. She slowly wrapped the sash around her waist securely before venturing out of the bedroom and into the dark living quarters. The only illumination of the well-furnished area was the soft golden hue of the lights at the end of the marble veranda.

Mahogany eyes, the same as her mother's, reflected the shine of the crystal clear water that sprouted up from the small fountain in the centre of the veranda as she approached it, running her finger tips tenderly over the small, smooth bumps of stone. She shifted her mahogany gaze out to the starry night, her orbs glistening as brightly as the bright city lights and artificial stars in the distance.

She knew the reason why sleep eluded her this night; ever since she had begun her Jedi training under Luke, so that she had a basic mastery of the Force, she felt a probing against her. A yearning connection for something unknown. Her brother had told her that it wasn't he, for they had already established theirs unconsciously years ago, yet she had a feeling on just what the propping could be.

Luke had told her that he felt it too just before he departed to Naboo. He had yet to return to Yavin IV and inform her of events there. Sighing, she prayed that her brother would return safely.

_'Close your eyes and breathe, Leia,' _she told herself, remembering her brother's words the first time he trained her in to opening herself up to the Force. _'Don't close yourself off. Remain open and let the Force flow through you. You and it are one.'_

Heeding her brother's words, Leia allowed her eyes to slide slowly shut, fingers curling into loose fists, as she slowly allowed the clean, crisp air to fill her lungs. She let all of her controversy evaporate, the kaleidoscope of irritation she felt earlier dissipating as she allowed the Force's steady and wistful current to wisp against her, gingerly seeping in through the cracks she allowed to open and fill her entirely.

With its current she felt peace finally come to her as she slowly opened her eyes again.

The sight surprised her, for it was not what she expected to see.

A maelstrom of mystification, jubilation and agitation tumbled inside of her, battering against the calm she had just restored, and she didn't know which emotion to feel the most as she stared, wide-eyed, at two faded blue figures.

The urge to demand who these two were died on the tip of her tongue. The moment her eyes met these two she felt a sense of familiarity wrap around herself comfortably, cocooning her.

And the female of the two ghostly figures looked very similar to herself.

Burned images of this woman's forlorn face blinked before her eyes like an old movie projector, flickering and dancing wildly before her; just as vague as her memory of the woman.

The male, she had only ever seen once with her brother on Endor, after the destruction of the second Death Star and the Imperial Empire. His shoulder-length blonde hair was a curly mess on his head. Even in death his eyes twinkled cheerfully, if not with a tiny spark of sorrow beneath. His features were finely set onto an angular face with a carefully fine, strong jaw structure. His height made the woman next to him look tiny, her head only coming to his shoulder in comparison.

The man was her father.

And her father had once been Darth Vader.

Anger bubbled inside of her as she looked at the father that she had only ever known to be a cruel, malicious Sith Lord. One who had imprisoned and tortured her. One who wrecked pain and suffering among millions of souls across the galaxy. And, most importantly to her; one who had stood by and made her watch the destruction of Alderaan, her home.

In doing so he had also made her watch, even though she never saw him again after her mission to retrieve the stolen Death Star plans, her father figures death.

And she _hated _him for that.

But this was a different man before her. A _Jedi. _Kind, compassionate, knowledgeable and a keeper of the peace. Here was a man who looked as if the only harm he could ever bring upon anyone was by loving too much.

And it's exactly what made him fall.

That was the only piece of good knowledge that she had about him that kept the former princess of Alderaan from bellowing her disgust towards him.

He must have sensed it, for a depressed glow shimmered in his eyes, and the warm smile that touched his lips slowly faded into an edged line. She watched as the man bowed his head towards the woman next to him and whispered silent words into her ear.

Her mother, a truly beautiful angel and an exact replica of herself, in return sang her own silent words to the man whose face contorted into an expression of uncertainty before slowly craning back up to meet his daughter's hard gaze.

"Leia…"

She whipped her hand, palm faced out towards him, up, cutting his words off with the sharpness of a butcher knife. "Stop," she snapped, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. A miniscule spark of satisfaction flickered inside of her, quickly warming into a fire of anger. All it took was a few more moments before the sparks reigned from her satisfaction to ignite the flames. "You do not have the right to just come here, where my family lives, and call me by my name. You didn't even know it until now."

The words had their desired effect, for the Jedi Knight flinched under her harsh tone, casting his shameful gaze towards his feet like a small child being scorned.

"Please don't judge him too harshly, Leia," the velvety voice of her mother spilled over the tense atmosphere her daughter had created, cooling the flames of anger until they were nothing but wisps of steam within Leia. "There are many reasons behind the things that your father has done."

Leia snorted, crossing her arms over her chest and raising one single, eloquent brown eyebrow. Yet, as a Jedi, she remembered that she should not judge until she has heard the perpetrator's side of the story.

Even if some of his atrocities had affected her.

Her silence allowed the Jedi to explain himself.

"Since you have only ever known me as Darth Vader, it is only now fair that I introduce you to who I was before then, and who I am now. I'm Anakin Skywalker."

Leia blinked, surprise filtering through her. Anakin meant warrior, and if anything, a Jedi wasn't considered a warrior until the Clone Wars began. It seemed unfitting to such a Jedi until she remembered that this man had done many great things as a Jedi general, a soldier of the Clone Wars.

"Please allow me to explain myself," Anakin pleaded softly, eyes imploring her to listen.

Half of her wanted to resent him further for all of the terrible things he had done, the worst being that he destroyed her home and killed her adoptive mother and father, the closest thing she ever had to a family. However the other half, the Jedi half that her brother had trained her in, begged her to allow him the opportunity.

Folding her arms across her chest, she eyed him sceptically and nodded.

"The Emperor corrupted me," her father began. "He manipulated me for years. Ever since I met him he had planned to turn me against the Jedi and everyone I loved, twisting my mind into believing that I was still upholding everything that I stood for when in reality I was destroying it."

Images passed through her mind of the repulsive man with the golden eyes; a man who wielded lightning from his fingertips with ferocity. Further images flashed before her mind's eye – images of her father during his corruption and how it withered away at him, morphing him into the feared and monstrous Darth Vader, vindictive Sith Lord.

His handsome face was shadowed with anger bottom lip trembling in grief and rage as he cradled a limp and lifeless body in his arms. Then a snap-hiss of a lightsaber came to life and she watched as her father slaughtered the Tuskin Raiders who had stolen the life of his mother.

Then the events of the Clone Wars were revealed to her. The first battle of Geonosis and the moment Anakin had lost his arm to the Sith Count Dooku. Leia felt her father's former rage towards his adversary and the unquenchable desire for revenge.

_"I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate. You have anger… but you don't use them."_

She felt both of the emotions the old man pointed out dwell within the young Jedi, warring with each other and threatening to consume him.

And then she saw how the Chancellor convinced Anakin to kill the Count in cold blood and how he offered him a false sense of security about revenge being natural for him, despite that feeling such and emotion and utilising it was not the Jedi way. And then the nightmares began - nightmares of losing Padme and his child, unaware that the child in fact had a twin. They clung to him, claws sinking into his flesh and pumping fear, as if some sort of venom, into him in every waking moment he spent.

This fear continued to haunt him throughout the following days, the Chancellor grabbing at every opportunity to be beside him and make sure that the Chosen One felt alienated from those he trusted most, clouding her father's mind further with confusion until eventually he succumbed to his fear of loss.

Leia closed her eyes at the sheer power of grief she felt wash over her father in his final moments before he fell. And despite her reservations, her heart went out to him.

She despised seeing how his life spiralled out of control when everything he did was to save those he loved the most.

And instead it destroyed him and everything he held dear.

Consequently it was all down to the machinations of one lone man; Sidious.

Breath baited, she was relieved that her father had been the one to end his life and that she had been down fighting in the final battle in the war between the rebel alliance and the empire that decided the final fate of the galaxy and the Jedi.

Once the visions stopped she slowly opened her mahogany eyes, fingers absently touching her right cheek to pull away and find a long tear resting on her finger tip.

She had only hated her father, Darth Vader simply because of all the terrible things he had done. But now… now that she knew Anakin Skywalker on another level and saw him as the great Jedi that he once was, fighting for the freedom of the galaxy in the Clone War and the quest to destroy the Sith, she could not help but pity his grief over his tale.

Her father had struggled, was still struggling, even now, to accept forgiveness and she had turned her back on him like a stubborn child.

She stared at the two blue images before her silently, both her mother and father looking anxious.

"I'm sorry."

They said nothing and she recognised it was an invitation to continue.

"I'm sorry that all this happened to you. But I can't forgive you just as quickly and as easily as my brother did. He has always been stronger in the Force than me and he was able to see the good in you. I never did until now."

She watched as Anakin bowed his head, her mother taking his hand in hers. "I understand."

Her heart cracked. "I… just need time, father."

Straining to listen, she barely managed to catch his murmured response. "Of course. I'll wait. However long it takes."

"One day, Anakin," Padme reassured him, and Leia watched, face impassive but smiling on the inside, as her mother rose up to her tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss on her father's cheek.

As she watched them both evaporate she felt her father's presence brush against hers. She felt his joy at her acknowledging him as her father, yet also felt his grief over everything he had done to her and others. She held on to his apology and brushed her own presence against his, telling him that she would soon forgive him. She felt a brief spark of joy rushing through him just before their connection broke completely and he faded back into the current of the Force.

"Hey, what are you doing out here at this time?"

Smiling, she blinked away a fresh wall of tears behind her dark eyes and turned to face the owner of the familiar voice that she had come to love.

"I just needed some air, Han. Couldn't sleep."

Han stared silently at her, eyes searching her own. The pirate was intuitive, yet he was no match at unravelling his impassive wife who was once a politician and now a Jedi.

Giving up, he smiled before stepped towards her, bringing his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder. "You were thinking about him again, weren't you?"

She stiffened against his body in surprise at his ventured guess.

"Your dad."

Deciding that he was more intuitive than she gave him credit for, she nodded, head brushing his thick brown hair.

"Did you see him?"

"I did."

"And?"

"One day, Han," she whispered, pulling back to look into his deep brown eyes. "One day."

And as she returned to bed with her husband she knew then that one day she would truly forgive Anakin Skywalker.

Because she was a Jedi; and in the end a Jedi always forgave.

* * *

**Okay, so I'm hoping that it wasn't dreadful and that you all enjoyed. :) Thanks for reading!**


End file.
